MENTAL HEALTH
A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE : REFRAMING BURNOUT
Ali Farooqui , MD
For over a decade , physicians and
medical students in every sector of the health industrial complex have heard about , completed modules on , or have been lectured to regarding burnout . Popularized in the 1980s by Stanford social psychologist Christina Maslach , burnout awareness has spread like wildfire allowing physicians to understand why some of us feel our once fierce passion for the practice of medicine has now been reduced to embers . Over half of surveyed physicians report feeling some of the symptoms of burnout : exhaustion , cynicism , decreased productivity , depersonalization and a lack of personal accomplishment . Many of us have been asked to take Maslach ’ s own burnout inventory to quantify the degree to which the practice of medicine in its current form has impacted our lives .
Being told that we physicians are getting whittled away and harmed by a profession to which we dedicate most of our lives is a tough pill to swallow . I have always approached the burnout issue with hesitation . I love medicine and am satisfied with my career choice as are many of my colleagues . But I cannot deny the frustration experienced by all of us from time to time . I have even started to notice that my own conversations about the medical industry are at times colored with an increasingly sardonic attitude . It scares me to wonder if feeling jaded is inevitable in our profession .
While we can measure burnout , are we really familiar with what the root causes are ? Is what we are experiencing actually burnout ? Has our drive and passion diminished ? We are a profession of individuals who have persevered through rigorous schooling and great personal sacrifice . We are not strangers to discipline , grit , determination and critical thinking . So why is it that we at times feel disenfranchised by our own profession ? I would argue the answer lies in the concept of moral injury . Moral injury can occur when we engage in , fail to prevent , or witness events that conflict with our values and beliefs .
Already in this article I have referred to our health care system as an industrial complex . Within this industry , we are akin to line workers . I wonder if our profession has been diluted to the point that we take intelligent , driven and solemn students who answer a call to be healers and instead grind them into workers who produce modern industrialized medical encounters - in bulk . Our autonomy has been chiseled away by corporate interests , including large hospital chains , insurance giants and Big Pharma . Our medical decision making is swayed by the looming threat of litigation . The weight of administration leans heavily on our shoulders , incessantly
18 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE